Rate my Randimar's Rarities

In the spirit of lively debate, I must offer some counterarguments!

I certainly won't argue against your assertion that since when quick step/run makes a difference, it does so in such a dramatic way that it lodges more readily in our memory than something as dull as armour, however, it is not true that reliable mail always makes a difference. If you're finished off by an obliterating bludgeon when you're at 10 HP, the presence or absence of reliable mail is unlikely to be relevant. Situations comparable to this are common: Melee attacks often have a great deal of damage to spare.

This is, however, not the main reason that I don't value reliable mail on boots very highly. I have two good reasons not to do so.
First, reliable mail can come from many sources. If I'm playing a dwarf warrior I get it from Raging Battler and possibly Dependable Mail. Choosing to have it on boots as well means it's coming at the expense of potentially valuable movement cards; flanking moves, quick steps, perhaps violent spins, team runs or other goodies if I'm in the mood for expensive shoes. To me, it seems that getting reliable mail from shoes is inefficient. Perhaps I'd feel differently if I had a greater abundance of step attacks?

Of course, it could be argued that while I can get reliable mail on other items more easily, more gooder = more best, right? Bringing me neatly to my second point, which is most dramatically highlighted if you play warriors with Helm Of Reinforcement and Yolotli Armor. Having too many cards you want to keep at the end of the turn is a waste. Currently I'm running these items on two elves, and adding reliable mail to these decks would surely be a waste, since I very commonly have two cards I'd prefer to keep than reliable mail in my hand. If I'm playing a dwarf, I have a similar "problem", since I'm not going to want to discard a quickness aura and have a good chance of already having a reliable mail from another source.

Anyway. Obviously all of this is build dependent and I'm speaking from the experience of having used a few builds in which reliable mail on boots makes little sense to me, and also I'm vastly less experienced than most of you, so I hope I don't come across as trying to tell you how things are, since I'm really hoping others will check my thinking and explain where I'm wrong, or confirm that I'm making sense

Hah, I'd love a reap the whirlwind, but in the meantime my experiement with the funny dagger continues (and so far the dagger warrior is feeling less useful than the bejewelled shortsword warrior, but I'm still hanging out for that glorious OB-in-the-back on a dude holding 3 parries )

 

I don't have a white flame, but I do have a Red Flame. Given I'm sitting on a fair pile of gold, should I pick up the flamespit staff just so I don't end up wishing I had?

 

if you want reap the whirlwind first you must sow the wind

 

I think it would depend on how many arcane item slots you are dedicating to burning cards. If you have a lot of them the long duration of Flame Spit doesn't matter as much as you are constantly laying on more burns. If you run fewer burning cards then you'll want the effect to stay on while you wait to draw the next one. I don't own a good Instant Burn weapon so I haven't messed around with it but I would look for a weapon with a larger base damage, higher burning value, or burst spells. I'd imagine having two Flame Spits stuck your hand would suck.

 

For me this week, one legendary and a few useful epics:
Clowen's Boots So another week without a nice legendary

Advanced Command I already have one Bloody Command, but bought for a second good human move skill
Hrillia's Healing Ring Bought. Dont think i will use it but it was my first and im a completionist
Robe Of Useful Things My second. Dont think ill ever use them, but who knows...

I have at least a few copies of all the other epics.

 

Ok I'm a bit worried there are way too many cool things this time around, I haven't amounted enough for a single legend before and am currently very low on gold... looking for guidance and 'must farm!' :b

Legends
Captain Cedric's Boots seems like a very good move(r), otherwise I have a single Rhood's Boots and 3 Salzar's Sandals with Team Run - the Flanks are nice.
Mullik's Blisterstaff adds some nice tokenless firestorm rain without drawback cards, and adds a fair bit of 'back away from me while I burn you.. all of you' to boot
Reaper's Scythe I mean wow, just wow.. I found out first hand what dodge could do (against me) in Chess, its got the big hits, its got Blind Rage.. just not sure 2500 is 'in the cards...'

I'm going to view some history on these items in this thread itself for thoughts too, but now more back to reality a bit cost wise... ;b

Highlighted Epics
Bec De Corbin feels a bit like poor man Reaper's Scythe - which is me, haha - loses the giant hits and Blind Rage, but still has 2 dodge, adds range attacks/conditional defense, and a bash
Penteth's Orb I don't have yet either - well I have none of these listed - but I have some similar here such as Morbo's Pendant and tokenless FS arcane items, though I like PoK here too

Also honorable mention to Advanced Levitation which looks like fun, I just can't really imagine using it over the tokenless Electroporter Novice or a specific use one when using a token.

 

I would rank them as you have them here. I'd love to have the Scythe, but you can get high damage elsewhere.

PENDANTS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!

(I'm sorry, I had to)

 

go for the Scythe

 

Is Mullik's Blisterstaff worth the lvl 6 gold farm build (and only 2 blue tokens available)?
* I only have one Staff Of The Inferno and it's my only tokenless FS staff - edit, actually 2 and can look for more
* I have two Staff Of Glowing Coals but at 2 blue tokens I haven't put it on any of my wizards yet
* My latest farm setup is 2 wiz heavily FS decked with priest

 

If you're going to become intimately familiar with the L6 kobold mines this week, I'd recommend picking up the Blisterstaff first. It can speed up farming so the rest will go more quickly.
I have 4 and use them all.

 

I would trust Sir Veza on this BUT I find that using Staff of the Inferno gives my firestorming party fast and murderous wins. Whoever gets combustible plays their FS first, then the next person, and so on until they all die except for one guy. Rarely do all 3 get combustible. When I add Mullik's Blisterstaff, that character is less likely to die, but it also makes farming slower, since every time they draw Force Cone it's an Ember Burst or Combustible->Firestorm they didn't draw.
So Mullik's is good, definitely good but ever since getting 5 Staff of the Inferno and 3 Firehide Robes (along with Wym's Lavastaff) , it doesn't see much use anymore.

If you're using level 4 dwarf wizards with 1 Staff of the Inferno and 1 Firehide Robes each, I would say that it's much faster. If you are using level 8 dwarf wizard(s) with 2 blue tokens, now you want a Lavastaff/Black Walnut Staff and Mullik's Blisterstaff.

My recommendation for you is, if you have 3 Firehide Robes, grind until you get another Inferno or give in and buy the Blisterstaff. Use 2-3 Level 4 Dwarf wizards and animspeed cranked up to 11 (well, I mean 9999). And good luck!

The crappy part is, I would recommend the Reaper's Scythe first, the Captain Cedric's Boots second, and the Mullik's Blisterstaff last.

 

Good point. CKaz (and everyone else), go with the best build you can make with what you have. Not everyone has SOTI, etc. It's fortunate (and probably intentional) that L6 is the prime gold-farming area because it can be farmed in so many ways. I've used 3x Level 4 dwarves and it usually worked pretty well. I usually go with a 2 wiz, 1 priest build for levels 1-17 because for me it works better, but I admit I use a legendary-heavy build.

 

hmm appreciate all the thoughts
- The Run/Jade yeah, that Reaper is sooo sweet ugh lol
- Jade/Sir Veza interesting, while I do 'lower level less cards' for my 1hp crew tries, I hadn't for regular lvl6 farming, hmm
...I just run out of SP slots so tried to make one core team w/diff token counts

 

But you've got down from 36 HP to 10 HP some way? If you've got your Reliable Mail when you're at 10 HP and the enemy is ready to deliver a final blow, it won't help you, right. But if you had it from the very beginning, it will prevent at least 8 damage to you, often much more. People don't always play Obliterating Bludgeons; the most popular attack is Nimble Strike which deals 6 damage (9 with Mass Frenzy). But there are also weak attacks that are used to lure your blocks! And there are Firestorm parties too. One Reliable Mail from in your starting hand makes a HUGE difference. One Quick Step in the starting hand rarely means much.

Yes, having the boots with good movement cards like Team Run, Violent Spin and Sparkling Cloth Armor is better than having the armored boots (unless you're playing Firestorms yourself). But we're talking about the tokenless boots here, and there are no tokenless boots with these cards.

Yes, you don't want to have too many armor cards in your deck. But how many is too many? 2-3 Reliable Mails is OK, so you can play both Raging Battler and Bertha's Big Clogs. Dependable Mail isn't very good since Mail is crappy. If you have Xander's Mail, you can play it too and still don't have the "too much armor" problem. Anyway, even with Dependable Mail you don't want to keep the Mails so you're free to discard them.

 

You simply cannot skip it. A weapon of style and power.

Great boots. Not as important as the scythe, but still very desirable.

I'd say you can live without it. I am living somehow

I didn't buy it. The attacks aren't powerful enough to justify spending on it, plus Flimsy Block is just crappy.

Nice item, but yes, Morbo's Pendant is usually better.

This is really good. Arcane Burst is a very powerful attack, and rare. There is a party with it at the forums (look for Savaged Burst). I'd buy it before the other epics you've got, and even before the Blisterstaff. But, certainly, if you won't farm enough gold, you can live without it.

 

You can't compare Reliable Mail to Quick Step. You need to compare it to Walk. Is Walk going to help you more than a Quick Step in your opening hand? Probably not, Quick Step can give you priority at the cost of one step. Reliable Mail is often going to be better than Officer's Harness when drawn early but is it worth switching Quick Step with a Walk? For a warrior I would much rather use Corian's Boots than Bertha's Big Clogs to minimize the number of weak cards.

 

Walk is a weak card, right, but at many maps it's better than Quick Step in your opening hand, since you need to run to the victory area. Thus, it isn't much worse than Quick Step in general. But Reliable Mail is obviously MUCH better than Officer's Harness, so Bertha's Big Clogs are better overall for the warrior.

 

Walk is much worse than Quick Step in the late game when everyone has already been positioned. Similarly, having a Reliable Mail when you have two better armor or block cards is much worse than getting to keep the Officer's Harness. There will always be situations in which one equipment is better than the other as neither item has cards that are strictly inferior. However, I think everyone can agree that Bertha's Big Clogs has a weak card while Corian's Boots does not. This is the reason why a lot of people prefer Solid Rock over Perfect Toughness. You never want to draw a garbage card like Walk or Rusty Armor.

 

I find I use my Big Bertha's over my Corian's boots. This is mostly due to limited defense against magic I have for my Warriors.
BUT quick step or any card with Cantrip is hard to ignore. This conversation has reminded me how happy I was to get Diamond Moccasins but have yet to use them. Brutal Charge, Quick Run AND Sparkling Cloth is worth the token.

 

It's an interesting discussion, but my stance is that Reliable Mail is unplayable and therefore useless, unless you absorb a significant amount of damage with it in a game. I tend to discard Reliable mail more than move cards, blocks and attacks, unless I'm in one of those damage-absorbing situations. More often than not though, Reliable Mail does not help me win games. At least Officer's harness won't make you discard an attack/move/block.

SP is a different story though.